Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/199

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gained the channel of Tiber, the haven of their wishes, and may laugh at ocean and at me. Mars had strength to destroy the Lapithan nation, huge as they were; the father of the gods gave up the honoured land of Calydon to Diana's vengeance; and what had Lapithans or Calydon done 5 to earn such penal ruin? But I, Jove's great consort, who have stooped, miserably stooped, to leave nothing untried, who have assumed every form by turns, am vanquished by Æneas. Well, if my power be not august enough, I would not shrink from suing for other aid, be it 10 found where it may; if I cannot prevail above, I will stir up the fiends of the deep. It will not be mine to keep him from the crown of Latium—be it so; fixed for him by fate unalterably is his bride Lavinia; but delays and impediments may well be where the matter is so great; but to 15 cut off the subjects of our two monarchs—this may be done. So let father and son-in-law embrace, at the cost of their people's lives. The blood of Trojan and Rutulian shall be your dower, fair lady; Bellona[o] is waiting to lead you to your chamber. Nor is Hecuba the only mother that 20 has teemed with a fire-brand and given birth to a nuptial blaze; Venus sees the tale repeated in her own offspring—a second Paris—a funeral torch rekindled for reviving Troy."

Having vented words like these, she flew down in black 25 rage to the earth; and now she summons Allecto[o] the baleful from the dwelling of the dread goddesses and the darkness of the pit—Allecto, whom bitter wars, and strifes, and stratagems, and injurious crimes cheer like a cordial. Hateful even to Pluto her sire is the fiend, hateful to her 30 Tartarean sisters, so many the forms she puts on, so terrible the mien of each, so countless the vipers that burgeon blackly from her head. Her, thus dreadful, Juno lashes to fiercer fury, speaking on this wise: "Grant me, maiden daughter of Night, a boon all my own—thine undivided 35 aid, that my praise and renown may not be dashed from their pedestal—that the children of Æneas may not be able to ensnare Latinus in a bridal alliance or beset the